You can't go to prison without having something to give to the person you want to meet. Just the reality you will face can take your breath away. And despite all this, the numbers are only growing. Those who are in preventive detention are added to others who have been in preventive detention for several years, and others who have been definitively sentenced. If we can understand the administrative burden and the length of the procedures, we have every right to ask ourselves at what cost? When people in pre-trial detention live in lamentable conditions we wonder if this is still justice. Has the implementation of justice not given rise to the development of several forms of injustices which correspond to the realities of our context?
Everything suggests, given the state of the situation, that even if new spaces are developed, living conditions will not change because, even the construction of new establishments or even the expansion of those that already exist will only be a short-term solution. Can the government do better than what it cannot do externally? No way! Living conditions are difficult everywhere and even more so in prison. If some have the sensation of living hell in prison, others have the same sensation outside with the only difference that if the one who is incarcerated envies the one who is at liberty, the one who is at liberty does not envy the one who is incarcerated.
The government is doing its best to satisfy the people, but the best is not enough. Everyone is forced to look for a way to get out despite everything because we have to survive just like those who are incarcerated which in addition to facing other realities, do their best not to die in penitentiary establishments where a large majority of prisoners live in precarious conditions unlike a minority who, due to his financial means in particular, can afford enviable conditions exactly like what happens outside. But this is just an aside. It is not a question of focusing particularly on the reality of social classes or quite simply on the fact that there are some who are very rich while there are those who are poorer. It is a question of what is being done to improve the living conditions of prisoners with this growth in numbers which evolves from year to year in a context where in 2020, according to the international federation of Christian actions for abolition of torture (FIACAT), more than 70% of people deprived of their liberty in Cameroon were in pre-trial detention. And the situation is not ready to improve since, as indicated by a study published by the European journal of Education Studies in 2023, several demographic studies carried out in 2013, 2014 and 2020 on the prison population in Cameroon have shown that: 70 to 80% of prisoners are repeat offenders. To this must be added the fact that the prison administration staff is not proportional to the prison population. This significant fact implies more effort and vigilance in addition to being a factor in increasing injustices in these environments also corrupted by bad practices or a tendency to monetize any service not only to make money but also create more of a climate of fear in the community.
If it is already very difficult to live decently in freedom, the situation of those who are deprived of their liberty surprises no one. It's better to do everything not to be there. The dismal living conditions in which the people live there already show clearly that these are places where it is better not to be. If a survey by the national statistics institute dating from April 2024 reported the fact that: “nearly 2 out of 4 Cameroonians live below the national poverty line set at 813. FCFA per day and per person, or 10 million Cameroonians out of a population estimated at more than 27 million", we should not be surprised by the fact that this poverty threshold quantified in CFA francs is still two to three times lower at the level of prison establishments. In 2017, the National Human Rights Commission, while congratulating the efforts undertaken to increase the figure for the food ration of prisoners, nevertheless made it known that the new sum, namely: 270 FCFA/day, remained insufficient. Note that at the national level and set at 813 CFA francs in 2024, this monetary poverty threshold calculated on the basis of final household consumption expenditure was 913 FCFA/day for an adult in 2016.
Prison overpopulation in Cameroon and its consequences
One of the reasons that justifies both legal and illegal migration from Cameroon to the outside world is the difficult living conditions. Some are looking for something better that they can't get at home. Unlike developed and emerging countries where the large population is truly an engine of growth, in poor countries on the other hand, instead of truly being an economic force, overpopulation is always a factor of precariousness, unsanitary conditions or poor living conditions, especially when we imagine that the best way to solve problems is to fill the prisons with people. While we demonstrate a certain justice by depriving liberty of those who have chosen to violate the social contract, we create and promote other social problems in penitentiary establishments.
Some will say criticism is good but we also need concrete solutions. But this is not a criticism but just an inventory of a situation which in the past required the construction of penitentiary establishments which were not expected to accommodate as many people today. The Cameroonian State itself contributed to creating the situation in which he finds himself today. It is not the fault of the detainees but above all of the slowness of the procedures. If the law needs time to give its verdict, this does not justify the fact of creating promiscuity in enclosures supposed to be re-socialization centres that certain people use to resolve personal problems which manifest themselves in arbitrary detentions. If pre-trial detention must be taken into account as a precautionary measure to prevent defendants from fleeing, what measures are implemented to ensure that these people live decently in prison? Even if the human being, faced with the harm that has been caused to him, sees nothing wrong with the fact that criminals die in prison, there is still the dignity of Men which is at stake, and we must see things from objective manner.
The ministerial department in charge of justice in Cameroon must make more efforts to improve the living conditions of prisoners. Prison overcrowding encourages the proliferation of malicious activities within establishments that are supposed to help individuals reintegrate into society but which, in addition to being places where illegal activities develop, also encourage the proliferation of diseases. Furthermore, this overpopulation created by the Cameroonian State itself does not promote the effective decongestion of prisons. Indeed, following restrictive decree No. 2020/193 of April 15, 2020 commuting and remitting sentences, prisoners have benefited from release due to the pandemic. A decision which certainly could not satisfy everyone, but which a large majority of the prison population was not able to benefit from because they did not meet the criteria, in particular that of already having a final sentence in a context where more half of the detainees are in pre-trial detention.
Everything suggests that we are not ready to leave the inn with such a situation. The lamentable state in which the detainees live is the consequence of a slow procedure which is now difficult to resolve. Like those who live on the outside in precarious conditions for lack of anything better, prisoners live in even greater precariousness because the State is not able to give them anything better. In a context where the number of accused is still well above the number of those convicted and has been for many years, we cannot hope for better. In such conditions, the end of prison overcrowding and poor hygienic conditions are not about to end. An ex-inmate reported in 2022 that there were around fifty of them in a 9m square cell and without drinking water. These deplorable living conditions are the consequence of the lowness of procedures which is a crucial problem which does not really allow to comply with the requirements of international law, namely: ensuring that all detainees are held in humane and dignified conditions, and guaranteeing their rights to health. If efforts are undertaken in this direction, with such numbers, their effectiveness must be called into question because when an establishment supposed to accommodate 800 prisoners has more than 4,000 within it, there is reason to be very worried.
If those who have more or less financial means can achieve a change in their situation in these difficult living conditions, it is not something that everyone can afford because even lawyer appointed by the president of the bar to represent a person who has not been able to afford the services of a lawyer are not always pay on time. Another problem which excessively extends stays in establishments where injustices make the task even more difficult for private initiatives which are particularly necessary to help young people in particular who, like all other prisoners, pay the price of a lamentable prison system which promotes deplorable living conditions to be deplored and to condemn.
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